


The Study Spot

by TheoMiller



Category: Knight & Rogue - Hilari Bell
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Fisk didn't really want Michael to be in the library +1 time he invited him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Study Spot

**Author's Note:**

> For Leslie, aka illumineangel.

1.

Fisk had a carefully cultivated air of “fuck off”. Even pledging freshers gave him a miss. He wasn’t particularly physically intimidating, no, but it worked anyways. His ex-girlfriend, Lucy, had once explained it as Fisk being like a feral cat – if you saw a picture of him sleeping, you might mistake him for someone cuddly and approachable. But anyone who saw him conscious gave him a wide berth for fear of his claws.

He also had total dibs on the best study spot in the library. It was a big table with chairs so old their foam was actually pretty soft, tucked into a corner between the emergency stairwell and old city records. Those precious few who knew it existed also knew that Fisk was not a sharing and caring sort of person, _especially_ when it came to his study spot.

There was a rumor – spread by Fisk himself, of course – that Fisk was known in his hometown for having set the record for both the longest juvenile rap sheet and the highest grade point average. Neither of those was true. He tied with Judith on GPA, and he wasn’t fool enough to get caught that often.

So Fisk was known as both a genius and a badass, rather than someone who’d really just rather they work in silence, and it worked for him.

Until Michael Sevenson came crashing into his life, clutching a flier.

“Hi, I’m Michael Sevenson, I’m here on behalf of New Hope Animal Shelter, on Fifth and Madison, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Fisk, who couldn’t actually ban people from his section of the library, glares in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation. Michael either didn’t understand or didn’t care, because he approached further and handed Fisk a flier.

“We’re doing a drive. It’s mostly for food and such. But especially litter, we need clumping litter, right now we’re using no-clump, and it means we have to dump a bunch of it at the end of every day.”

Fisk attempted to convey with another glare how little he cared, but Michael was beaming at him. “So,” he said, taking the flier. “How many animals does your little charity kill each year?”

“Out of three hundred seventy two animals taken in last year, exactly six were euthanized, all of them for terminal, chronically painful illnesses. The monetary donations go almost entirely towards medication, and behavioral problems are treated with socialization and acclimatization rather than euthanasia.” Michael didn’t fold his arms, or falter, and his expression was almost challenging despite his relaxed stance.

And while Fisk had a healthy history of running from fights, he also refused to be beaten at his own game. So…

“What about humans? Or do you only give a damn if they’re fluffy?”

“We take in lizards, too, you know. And a snake, at one point. As for humans,” he reached into the pocket of his blazer – honest to the gods, a blazer – and took out an index card sized information sheet on, yep, a food drive for the homeless. “In the summer, we give out water and sunscreen and weather-appropriate clothing. In the winter, there’s a warm clothing and blanket drive. So if you ever have old cast-off clothing, please email us, and we’ll send a volunteer to your dorm or apartment to collect it.”

Fisk took the card. Then, “How do you help the LBGT youth who come by?”

“Well, for starters, we refer to them as the LBGTQIA-plus community, or the MOGAI community. It’s more inclusive that way. We try to be as inclusive as possible, and we have volunteers from all sorts of minority groups, and sensitivity training beside. We also keep our shelters safe places by having gender-neutral sleeping and bathroom arrangements, and a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault, and a three-strikes policy for hate speech.”

A business card for a shelter was added to the stack, and Fisk scowled.

“Fair trade or free trade?”

“Both, but fair trade is the priority,” he said, and handed over a pamphlet on a charitable organization working to eradicate slavery, with a list of chocolate suppliers who fully supported the farmers they got their cocoa beans from.

“Police brutality?”

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked, I just got my paper back on that,” he said, and rummaged in his messenger bag. It was less of a paper and more of an entire goddamn encyclopedia, judging by the page count. “So, are you done with the bullshit rhetoric, or do you want to ask me about another cause?”

Fisk didn’t even get a chance to reply. The other man just left, and Fisk had nothing but a stack of informational material and the distinct impression he’d just been beaten.

2.

“It’s Fisk, right?” A familiar voice asked, about a week later.

Fisk leveled Michael Sevenson with a glare. “Did it occur to you that I didn’t give you my name for a reason?”

“I honestly didn’t know it was going to be you,” said Sevenson, calmly. “I found your flashdrive in the computer lab.”

“My flashdrive doesn’t have my name on it,” Fisk said, even as he took the proffered device.

“I had to open one of the assignments. I liked the point you made about Cicero.”

Fisk had to fight the urge to clutch the flashdrive close to his chest like a dragon protecting its horde. “You _read_ my _paper_?”

“Oh. Err, I’m sorry, that was an invasion of your privacy, that didn’t occur to me at the time.”

“It didn’t occur to you? So it didn’t occur to you that I’d have to report this to make sure you don’t plagiarize my work.”

“I don’t write a lot of papers about Ancient Roman orators, as a criminal justice major,” retorted Sevenson.

“So you’re just a nosy bastard,” Fisk snapped. It was remarkable how quickly this guy could get under Fisk’s skin.

The other student glared back at Fisk for a moment, before taking a deep breath. “Fine. Whatever. Good luck on your paper.”

3.

Fisk arrived at his usual table to find Michael Sevenson already there, his books and papers set out neatly in front of him, backpack slung over the back of his chair, pen scratching away at his notebook. Fisk gritted his teeth – he couldn’t even complain that Michael was taking up too much room, because he’d carefully restricted himself to precisely the amount of space he needed and not a square centimeter more.

“What the fuck,” Fisk said flatly.

Michael glanced up. “Oh, um. I felt bad for getting off on the wrong foot last time, so I brought you a muffin.” He pulled a carefully napkin-wrapped muffin that was almost the size of Fisk’s head and offered it to Fisk. Fisk, who’d maybe forgotten to eat breakfast, had to pause to keep himself from snatching it away.

“Thank you?” Fisk said, taking it.

“You’re welcome,” beamed Michael. “It’s lemon-blueberry, if that’s all right?”

Fisk was hungry enough that he’d eat a bran muffin at this point, but he actually did like lemon blueberry muffins, so he nodded and peeled the napkins away from the delicious-smelling baked good. Then he paused. “You didn’t, like, borrow a secret poison from the forensic science kids, right?”

“Why would I poison you?” said Michael, with a smile playing around his lips.

“Because I was super rude to you?” Fisk suggested.

“Ah,” Michael said, “was that an apology?”

Fisk looked between Michael and the muffin. “It’s the closest you’re going to get to one.”

“Fair enough,” said Michael.

“You do realize there’s no eating in the library, right? If the librarian catches us, we’re dead.”

“I brought her one too.”

Fisk hid his smirk with a rather large chunk of muffin. Apparently Michael Sevenson was one of the devious, Slytherin-type criminal justice majors, merely playing at being the white knight sort. And that was a con he could appreciate.

4.

“What, no bribe today?” Fisk said, when he found Michael at his table once again.

“I have the sort of white-out you can write on,” said Michael. “I would’ve brought cookies, but my sister ate them.”

“You have a sister?”

“One sister, three brothers, and a second cousin who grew up with us. You?”

“Three sisters and a brother-in-law who hates me.”

“Candy?” Michael said, and offered him a tiny 3 Musketeers.

Fisk narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to use operant conditioning to make me less prickly?”

“ _What_?”

“You know, I tell you something about my personal life, you reward me with chocolate, I let you sit in my corner, you reward me with white out and muffins.”

“Uh,” said Michael, “I’m sorry, _what_? Has someone done that to you?”

“Never date a psych student,” Fisk told him vaguely, and ate the 3 Musketeers.

5.

Fisk dove under the table the minute the first gunshot rang out. He glared at the emergency stairwell as people screamed and the gun kept firing, cursing the bright young university employee who’d decided to get the alarm replaced just the week before someone decided to shoot up the library. If he pushed the door open, whoever was shooting could follow and have a 50/50 chance at catching and shooting Fisk. But if he didn’t trigger the alarm, the death toll would be high, and the chances of Fisk being among the dead were—well, he wasn’t a statistics student for a reason, but he didn’t much like his odds.

“Hey,” someone said, in the pause between shots. _Michael_. “Whoa, hey, it’s okay. Willy, right?”

Fisk crawled to the nearest bookshelf and poked his head around the corner. The guy with the gun – Willy, apparently – was pointing his weapon right at Michael, who was hovering a yard or two away with his hands held up in front of himself. “Stop talking!” Willy snapped.

“Willy, I know you’re upset,” said Michael, the idiot, the thrice-damned white knight idiot trying to talk down a madman with a gun. “We can see that, I can see that you’re upset, I think you’re just as scared as the rest of us, which is why I need to know how I can help you. Tell me what’s wrong, Willy, so I can help you.”

Willy’s hand was shaking. Fisk finally placed his face—Willy Dawkins, TA for the economics professor. “Back off, Sevenson,” he snapped.

“That woman you shot, her name is Ginny Weaver, she’s got leukemia, which means she’s going to bleed out if you don’t let some paramedics come in. I don’t know what happened, Willy, but Ginny isn’t the one who hurt you, is she?”

Fisk saw the change in Dawkins’ body language a second before he started yelling, and Fisk sprang out at him, knocking them both to the ground. The gun went off near Fisk’s head.

“Fisk!” yelped Michael, sounding strange and distant to Fisk’s ringing ears.

Someone grabbed Fisk by the collar and hauled him free of Dawkins, and a moment later Fisk’s head cleared of tinnitus enough that he could look up. Michael was struggling to pin Dawkins down while dismantling the gun.

“Shit,” said Fisk, or maybe he just mouthed it, he couldn’t really tell, and dragged himself to his feet to go take the gun and toss it far away.

Michael kept repeating something at him, and Fisk finally resorted to reading his lips. _Ginny Weaver_. The librarian.

Someone was already beside her, but they weren’t applying nearly enough pressure to the blood-soaked cloth they were holding to her side, so Fisk pushed them out of the way and said, or possibly yelled, for them to call an ambulance.

+1.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, with a savior complex to boot, it would’ve served you right if you’d been shot, don’t ever try to reason with a mass murderer, this isn’t Criminal Minds!”

Michael blinked at him. Then, “I’m not the one who tackled him.”

“I only tackled him because he was about to shoot you, idiot!”

“I know,” said Michael, and reached out to squeeze Fisk’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by bringing me another one of those goddamned muffins when you come to the library today.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes, it is, do you think you can manage to come, or do you have plans to rescue an old lady from a mugger?”

“No, I think I’ll stick to stopping crimes when you’re around to help.”

Fisk groaned.


End file.
